This application is related to and claims the benefit of priority from Japanese Patent Application No. 11-004305, filed on Jan. 11, 1999, the entirety of which is incorporated herein by reference.
The present invention relates to a communication network system providing a plurality of services. More specifically, the present invention relates to a technology for reducing administration costs for network systems having large-scale backbones.
With the emergence of the WWW (World Wide Web), the use of data communications through IP (Internet Protocol) is expanding rapidly. With IP communications that use the WWW, communications do not need to center on data as before but can also involve the sending and receiving of multimedia information such as audio and video. Thus, there is a demand for large-scale backbone networks that can handle high-speed transfers of growing volumes of data.
As networks become larger in scale, the management of communication resources within the network becomes an issue. Providing consistent communication quality for transfers of large amounts of data requires servers that manage the resources within the network. For example, there is a need to provide a division of labor, e.g., a plurality of communication nodes executes packet transfers that require high-speed processing, while servers provide services that require complex processing such as routing and communication resource management.
In communications carriers and large-scale internet service providers that provide large-scale network services, this type of division of labor is crucial in order to provide high performance while also allowing low-cost administration.
The advantage of using these types of servers is that since there are fewer points where information is managed, there are fewer devices to be administered by the network administrator, thus reducing operating costs.
However, as networks get larger in scale and the types of services provided by these networks increase, the types of servers used to provide these services to the communication nodes will also increase. In such cases, the settings in each of the communication nodes that use these services have to be updated every time a new service-providing server is installed or the settings for the services provided by existing servers are changed.
For example, new settings must be entered into the communication nodes to indicate the address information used to access the new servers as well as information needed to use services.
In large-scale network systems where many communication nodes are running, a huge amount of work is required when settings are changed or services are introduced. Thus, as the number of services provided increases, the work involved in updating settings increases and system administration is made more complex. As a result, introducing new services is time consuming and leads to increases in administration costs. Also, when the work involved in entering settings increases, the possibility that errors will be made in these settings will also increase, thus reducing the reliability of the network system.
The object of the present invention is to reduce administration costs in a network system. More specifically, in a large-scale network system operating with many communication nodes, the object of the present invention is to reduce administration costs by reducing the burden involved in entering settings even when a new service-providing server is installed or the service provided by an existing server is changed.
In order to overcome the problems described above, the present invention centralized control of information about the service-providing servers installed in the network using a directory server set up separately from the service-providing servers. This information is sent to the communication nodes in the network either automatically or in response to requests from communication nodes.
More specially, the present invention is a communication network system including at least one communication node transferring a received packet to a destination affixed to the packet, at least one server providing a predetermined service, and a directory server. The directory server includes means for storing storing service information relating to conditions for receiving services provided by the servers and means for providing information providing the service information stored in storing means to the communication nodes.
The communication node includes: means for determining a server for processing packets of a predetermined type out of the received packets based on service information provided by the directory server; and means for transferring predetermined packets transferring the predetermined types of packets to the server determined by the determining means.
The predetermined types of packets referred to here indicate, for example, packets relating to services provided by the network such as packets relating to routing and communication quality management. These packets generally are assigned addresses of communication nodes requesting processing as the destination address. In the present invention, the directory server provides unified management of service information indicating, e.g., definitions for packets relating to specific services, addresses of servers providing these services, and packet processing that must be performed by the communication node receiving these services. Service information is sent to the communication nodes in the network either automatically or in response to requests from the communication nodes.
Based on service information provided by the directory server, the communication nodes determines a server to process packets of a predetermined type out of the received packets.
Thus, according to the present invention, the network administrator does not need to enter settings in all of the communication nodes even when a server is newly added to the network or if the service provided by an existing server changes. The network administrator need only maintain and manage the service information stored in the directory server, making changes when needed. Thus, network administration costs can be reduced.